


Letters to Thom Rainier

by brightephemera



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Correspondence, F/M, Letters, Love Letters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 14:39:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10699092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightephemera/pseuds/brightephemera
Summary: Inquisitor Daan could spare Thom Rainier but she couldn't stand to share a castle with him. If they are to understand one another it must be through correspondence as he returns to the wilderness to earn his redemption.





	Letters to Thom Rainier

**Author's Note:**

> Blackwall had a flirtation with Inquisitor Daan. Thom Rainier had only exile.

Daan stood over her writing desk. She wasn't writing to a friend. She wasn't writing to the man she had flirted with, wondered about, thought of. She was writing to a stranger. Tilting the heavy parchment, she tapped the blotting sand back into its tray. Then she re-read.

 

_Capt. Rainier,_

_I grant you some freedom of movement so that you may continue to help the Inquisition as a field agent. You will have no command. If your superiors happen to die in combat again it will not go well for you. If you should run away again, you will be dealt with as a dangerous fugitive. You should be used to that._

_Respond to confirm that you understand the terms._

_\- Inquisitor_

 

He was already gone, of course. Sent out to deal with some apostate mages in the only way said mages seemed ready to meet. She did not intend to let him lie idle about Skyhold again. Ever again.

 

And then, two days later, a raven brought the reply. The envelope was soggy, the cheap paper inside almost disintegrating. But the hand, blocky and childlike in its painstaking construction, came through clear. 

 

_Inquisitor,_

_The terms are understood. I remain at your service._

 

It was signed in an inky blur that looked like it wasn't ready to coalesce into letters. In a way that was better. Pretending to Blackwall’s name now would earn him no favors.

 

In spite of herself, a day later, she wrote again.

 

_Capt. Rainier,_

_Is it hard for you to retread Orlais? Do you see many reminders of what you were? – Inq_

_Inquisitor,_

_Memories of a soldier blur together. I remember where Blackwall fell. Other cities, roads, they don't matter as much. Except as places to protect, now. I remain at your service. – Blur_

_Capt. Rainier,_

_Are you adequately supplied? I have instructed my lieutenants to see that so long as you remain an agent of the Inquisition you are not sabotaged in the field. –Inq_

 

_Inquisitor,_

_I have everything I could reasonably want. I remain at your service. – Blur_

 

Leliana raised her eyebrows when the Inquisitor brought the little cylinder to hand to the next outbound runner. She knew full well that Leliana knew the gist if not the details of this correspondence.

 

“Tell no one,” she said.

 

“I wouldn’t know what to say,” said Leliana.

 

“That’s fine.”

 

_Capt. Rainier,_

_Reports of your work are highly satisfactory. I trust you will keep it up._

_Fighting is heavy where I must travel. I am never defenseless but sometimes tired. I find myself missing the stories of past glories and valor. Even if they were lies. - Inq_

_Inquisitor,_

_You don't have to keep writing these. - Blur_

_Capt. Rainier,_

_Neither do you. - Inq_

_Inquisitor,_

_Understood._

_How is everyone in Skyhold? I passed through not long ago but didn't look anyone up. - Blur_

 

Her thoughts would no longer fit on a raven-sized message. She sent the next via a scout headed to the direction she believed Rainier was in.

 

_Capt. Rainier,_

_Morale is high, considering the circumstances. Sera is snappish, Vivienne oddly satisfied. Josephine spent a week trying to craft the explanation to the Calliers' surviving relatives that the Inquisition requires their murderer. But she did write that explanation, and I did sign it. - Inq_

 

Waiting for the reply was agony.

 

_Inquisitor,_

_You don't have to protect me. I will face their judgment. - TR_

_Capt. Rainier,_

_You habitually underestimate your importance to this enterprise. I would as soon give up my arm as a fighter of your prowess._

_The season is turning cold. I find myself surrounded by the people pressing into the keep. It's the good thing the Inquisitor is a creature of the people or she might feel crowded._

 

_Inquisitor,_

_I am not so hard to replace as that. You need your arm where it is. The better to elbow crowds, if it comes to that._

_Autumn is coming. Maybe in Skyhold that's just colder but it's all over the country here. Will you go out to see it? - Blur_

_Capt. Rainier,_

_I will not protest your usefulness much further. Do you want to know the cynical reason why you're irreplaceable? It is because you owe the Inquisition a debt you can never repay, and so we own you. Leliana pointed that out. Since her initial disgust she has become a staunch defender of the resource that is you. If you choose to believe that you are a tool in her hands rather than a man serving penance, then believe so. But I think penance suits you better._

_I write this from the Dales a few miles out of the Emerald Graves. The leaves are beautiful despite the profusion of bears. You remember…? Of course you remember the Hinterlands. We still have rooms full of the resulting furs in Skyhold._

 

_Inquisitor,_

_So long as I know my place. Your Inquisition wastes nothing._

_You were a much more congenial travelling companion than most. Soldiers are always hit and miss that way. I will take my assignments as given, of course. But when it comes to whistling nobody here can carry a tune. - Blur_

_Capt. Rainier,_

_Can I ask you something? Do you feel your new career has improved you? Were the lies necessary to justify yourself, or can just being one man with a sword and a conscience be enough for you? You carried the appearance well. Simple though it is, I prefer it._

_Inquisitor,_

_Maybe 'just a man' was all I should have reached for. But they tell stories about people who are more than that. Maybe it takes someone stronger than me to inspire those stories, but I had to try. I had nowhere to go but up. - Blur_

 

_Rainier,_

_I don’t know who sets these examples. I’ve certainly never met someone who reached that level. I guess we all try, though, or else what’s the point?_

_You should see the pantries with the season's trade. We're ready for a siege, should anyone be foolish enough to mount one._

_Last night I was out on the ramparts. It was a clear sky, close enough to touch. I found myself looking for the Three Pups. I looked in that square the Kennel where you told me to, just like I did that night. And then, whilst squinting, my focus moved away a tiny bit and suddenly in the side of my vision I could see them, all three of them in their little cloud. All I had to do was look in a different place. It put me in mind of Dorian's insistence that the Tevinter legends about them predated the Fereldan ones. But I finally saw them. - Inq_

_Inquisitor,_

_Dorian cheats. Tevinter's been around since before Ferelden was. But Fereldan stories run deeper than the country itself does._

_Does the thought of a siege cross your mind often? I know I'm not your expert anymore but I can inspect what's become of Skyhold and offer advice to your foreman if that would be useful. And if that day should come, know that the enemy will have to watch his back. - Blur_

 

_Rainier,_

_I need you where you are. You're still part of my Inquisition. I don't seriously expect an attack before the year is out, anyway. These mountains are formidable discouragements._

_Everyone here is well. Cullen beat Dorian at chess, a matter which practically caused an international incident. Josephine often asks me how you are. I think she means to ask whether I have re-arrested you yet. I am glad when I can report that you are well and pulling your weight. Varric's threatening to write a book but I think I've convinced him your history was just too improbable to make good entertainment. If I'm wrong, you'll read all about it in a few weeks or months._

_There are no new faces at Wicked Grace. Just in case you thought we'd replaced you already._

_We haven't._

_Regards,_

_Inq._

 

She realized while dusting off the dry sheet that a droplet had set between "I need you" and everything else, punctuation where she hadn't meant to leave it. She hesitated for far longer than she wanted to admit to herself, then pulled out a fresh sheet and started recopying the entire letter.

 

_Inquisitor,_

_I never thanked you for sparing my life._

_I know you never wanted me to, which is why I haven't brought it up before. But I owe you everything I have left and I mean to make good on that debt. You[...the text here got thinner, with several marks of letters begun and never completed...]you remembered what I did, the good parts, and gave me the chance to go on doing that. For that I thank you. I will not disappoint you again. I know my words mean nothing to you, but I pray my deeds do. I fight for you, and where I go your cause goes as well. That helps people. In the end I hope it helps you._

_I remain at your service, now and for as long as you will have me._

_Humbly yours,_

_Thom Rainier_

_Rainier,_

_I do not relish sitting in judgment on my fellow human beings. Everyone has reasons for what they did, even if I find those reasons barbarous or worse. Everyone has reasons, and I am the one to tell them their reasons weren't good enough and they must now pay the price. Then I name the price. I, the Inquisitor, alone._

_It is a little bit of a relief to face a man who cooperates._

_The Hissing Wastes are starkly beautiful; you and your beard wouldn't relish the sand but the night sky is too vast for words, Three Pups and all. I sighted a dragon three days ago. It would be the first I've faced without you. Do you want a souvenir?_

_Regards,_

_Inq._

 

_Inquisitor,_

_Come home safe. That's the only souvenir [a few words were scratched out, followed by a definite period]. You are the Inquisitor and there's only one of you. I won't tell you where to risk or not risk your life. But I urge you to remember its worth._

_As for passing sentence: Any other judge would have dispatched me as soon as my crime was discovered. Everything I do is to prove to the world that you weren't wrong in your judgment. I don't know if I'll ever succeed, but I’m trying._

_Have fun slaying your dragon._

_TR_

 

Daan sat at her desk. Her back still throbbed from the knife wound. Tomorrow she would sit in judgment on the Inquisition clerk who had inflicted it. And in that moment she had no idea who to trust. No longwinded letter for this: it had to have a raven’s speed.

 

_Blackwall,_

_Come to me as soon as you can._

 

And like an arrow from a bow drawn to its very limit, he came to her.


End file.
